Doorways to Infinity (13 page)

Aiven bobbed his head. “She’s the best around, she is. There’s no other that can compare.”

“Aiven can communicate with her mentally,” Jamie said. “It’s pretty impressive. Sammi fell in the river once, and Aiven got Sugar to rescue her. We were inside and didn’t know at first, so Aiven had to deal with it on his own. The river was really swollen from a strong storm the previous night, and Sammi doesn’t know how to swim.”

“It scared us half to death,” Evelyn said. “Sammi nearly drowned, but Sugar saved the day.”

“Is that true, Sugar?” Dr. Tindall said.

Sugar shook her mane and whinnied, and Dr. Tindall laughed. “I guess she can understand us.”

“She pulls the carriage for Ma and Aiven,” Brinna said. “She’s a good horse, she is.”

Dr. Tindall knitted her brow. “Are you the young woman who’s married to the policeman in Hendersonville?”

“Indeed I am, and happily so, I am glad to say.”

“And I’m married to Cory,” Gina said, “one of the men watching football inside. I’m Jamie’s cousin.”

“Gina’s pregnant,” Connie said. “With my first grandchild.”

“It almost didn’t happen,” Gina said with a shy smile. “It’s a common problem with the women in our family. But Fred talked to Momma Sue and Mrs. Malley and they taught her how to make a fertility potion to take care of it, and boy, did it ever!” She grinned and patted her belly, showing a slight bulge.

Their conversation was interrupted when the back door burst open and Carl appeared. “Jamie,” he called urgently, “someone is here to see you. I think we have an emergency.”

“Who is it? What’s the problem?”

“It’s Sean. His little sister has fallen into their well.”

Jamie ran to the house and disappeared inside, and Evelyn said, “Let’s go see what this is about.”

They found Jamie out on the front stoop. With him was a young boy Evelyn knew from the Rivershire School, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

“Take a deep breath, Sean,” Jamie said, “and tell me what’s going on.”

The boy gulped and said, “My little sister Livvy fell down the well.” He panted again and shook his head. “Pa tried to get her, but he couldn’t. It’s too narrow. When he tried to lower himself down, a stone fell loose and almost hit her. Now he’s afraid he’ll hurt her if he tries to pull her out.”

“Is she in the water?”

He shook his head again. “She’s wedged in it, though, down deep. She’s scared.”

“I bet.” Jamie glanced around the front yard. “Where’s your horse?”

“My brother took it with the wagon to get firewood this morning. I ran here.”

“Goodness,” Evelyn said, “That’s over two miles. Don’t you live near Mrs. Malley?”

“Our farm is just past her house, on the same side of the road.”

“Let’s go get your sister out.” Jamie jumped down the steps to the lawn, quickly outlined a glowing doorway, pushed it open and said, “Is that your place?” Sean looked carefully and then nodded, and Jamie rushed through it to the farm beyond, while Evelyn and the rest of their group followed.

Standing by the stone well were Sean’s parents, whom Evelyn recognized from the school. On the ground beside them was a jumbled pile of rope. Jamie and Carl joined them and Jamie wasted no time. “How long has she been down there?”

“Almost an hour,” the mother said, both hands pressed against her chest, her face pale. “She’s so cold. My darling is cold.”

“Sean said a stone fell loose from the inside wall when you went down there. Is it unstable?”

“It’s old and crumbling, and we are in sore need of a new one.” The father nodded. “I don’t know how she fell in.”

Evelyn and Dr. Tindall stood nearby and watched with the others. Dr. Tindall said, “Evelyn, how did they know Jamie was here today?”

“I told the kids at school. They’re fascinated by everything he does because they look up to him so much, so I told them about how we’re doing our Thanksgiving dinner.”

Jamie leaned over the low wall and peered inside the well. “I can’t see. It’s too dark.” He gestured with one hand and a tennis-ball sized glowing orb appeared inches above his palm. He floated it over the opening and said, “Hmm,” then without another word, he swung his legs over the side and dropped out of sight.

Dr. Tindall gasped and Evelyn said, “Don’t worry. He can fly, remember?”

“It was…it was just so sudden.”

A minute later, he rose out of the opening and settled on the ground. “It’s pretty tight inside. She’s jammed in there at the top of the water, and she’s wet and scared out of her mind.”

“I would be, too,” Carl said. “What are you going to do, translocate her?”

“That seems best.” Jamie glanced behind him and pointed at a spot on the grass nearby. “Don’t anybody stand right there. I need that space.” Then he leaned over the well again, looked down into it and flicked his fingers. An instant later, the little girl appeared on the ground nearby.

Shouts of relief arose from everyone who’d gathered to watch, and her parents rushed to her side. Carl knelt and quickly inspected the girl, feeling her arms first, then her legs. He looked up and said, “I don’t think anything’s broken, but she’s got some bad scrapes and she may be hypothermic.”

“Let’s take her to the clinic,” Jamie said. The girl’s father lifted her in his arms and waited while Jamie outlined another doorway and opened it, revealing the two-story medical facility by the school. Jamie paused and turned to face the farmer. “There’s a phone in there, so have someone call me when you’re finished and I’ll come make another doorway so you can go home. I’ll be at the stone house by the river.”

The farmer shook his head firmly. “You have done enough, and we have already interrupted your family celebration for too long, we have. My wife can stay here with Sean, and when Carrick gets back with the wagon, she can send him to fetch us. Or we can walk.”

“Are you sure?” Jamie said. “I don’t mind coming back. Really, I don’t.”

“I am sure you do not, but I will not ask it of you. Thank you, and go back to your meal and your family.” Without another word, he stepped through the portal and Jamie followed him, opened the clinic’s door for him, and watched until he disappeared inside with his daughter.

Evelyn made it a point to have Nancy Tindall sit with her during dinner, near the end of the table, along with her sister Connie and Mrs. Tully. Jamie, Aiven, and Sophie sat across from them. Jamie had made a new portal, a wide one, and joined the dining room of the house in Hendersonville with the main room in Rivershire, and they pushed the two tables together to make one long one that stretched across planets, one half on Earth and the other on Eddan’s world.

Once they were settled in their places, Dr. Tindall studied Sophie’s features, then peered down the table at Rachel, who was with Carl and his parents. “I can see the resemblance,” Dr. Tindall said. “In the eyes and the shape of your nose. I can tell that you and Rachel are sisters.”

“But I’m the older one, I’m afraid,” Sophie said.

“I had her when I was still in high school,” Evelyn said.

“Any children, Sophie?” Dr. Tindall asked.

“No, I couldn’t. Apparently, it’s a condition that runs in our family. Gina was able to get help from those old witches, but it’s too late for me.”

“I shouldn’t have been able to,” Rachel said. “If it hadn’t been for that wizard Eddan, I never would’ve had Jamie.”

Dr. Tindall turned to Jamie and said, “Do you have any idea how he did that?”

“No. I’m not sure how he managed to instill his powers and memories in me, either. Somehow, he transferred them to the ground in our backyard when he died, and I absorbed them while I grew up. He figured out a way to help my mom get pregnant and to ensure that I would be predisposed to magic.”

“Did anybody else absorb any power?”

“Rollie did, a little bit, and maybe Fred, too, though I think she was born to be a witch and just got stronger from playing in my yard with me. We spent a lot of time there.”

“Nobody else got any power? How about your parents?”

“I don’t have any more magic in me than a can opener,” Carl said from the far end of the table. John Paul, sitting across from him with Brinna, barked a laugh.

“Is magical ability genetic?” Dr. Tindall asked.

“Could be.” Jamie shrugged one shoulder. “It tends to run in families, but Eddan came from non-magical parents and grandparents. They were farmers.”

“The genetics of magic. Wouldn’t you love to study that?”

“I’d love to study
everything
,” Jamie said. “Like, why is my magic different from a witch’s? And how do I generate so much power when I blast things?”

“He
loves
to blast things,” Carl said.

“I shall be able to do that someday.” Aiven bobbed his head earnestly. “And fly and everything, just like Jamie.”

Mrs. Tully narrowed her eyes at him and frowned. “You shall go to school first, and learn your subjects. Then you may study magic.”

“Well…of course. That is what Jamie did. That is why he can do things that other sorcerers cannot.”

Dr. Tindall turned back to Jamie. “Is that true?”

Jamie paused with a forkful of turkey near his mouth and nodded. “My invisibility spell is my own invention. I altered my regular shield to do it, but I was able to make it more advanced because of stuff I learned in high school physics. I’ve added or improved some other spells, too.”

“He can do things with plants that’ll blow your mind,” Sophie said. “I teach biology in high school, and it just amazes me what all he can do.”

“Like what?” Dr. Tindall said.

“I can grow a tree from a seed in just a few minutes,” Jamie said. “And I mean fully grown.” He held his arms over his head and spread his fingers. “In fact, that reminds me.” He looked down the table at Grannie Darla. “When you buy trees for the park, get saplings, really small ones, ’cause it’ll be a lot cheaper. I’ll use my magic to grow them to full size after we plant them.”

“Then you can do that to the azaleas, too,” she said. “I’d like to have a long path lined with them that leads to a duck pond or a fountain.” She flashed her perfectly white teeth. “Don’t you think that would be nice?”

“Sounds like this park is getting more expensive every day,” Evelyn said.

“Maybe not,” Pete said. “We already own the land.”

“Why not put the park beside the school?” Dr. Tindall asked. “Isn’t there an empty field there?”

“We need to save that space so we can expand the school,” Jamie said. “Gramma says we might need more classrooms by next fall. And I still want to build a gym and a science wing.”

“We’re going to need a science teacher, then,” Rachel said and looked at Dr. Tindall. “Do you want a job?”

“Why does everybody keep asking me that?”

“Sorry, it’s just that we have picky requirements about whom we can hire. We can’t exactly set up a booth at a jobs fair. We offered the positon to Sophie and she declined.” Racheal glanced at her half-sister before turning back to Dr. Tindall. “But maybe you can give Darla some advice about the park.”

“Well, for starters, you should be careful about bringing plants over from Earth. You could introduce nonnative pests that could devastate the crops and trees in Rivershire.”

“I can probably get Fred to put a hex on them before we bring them over,” Jamie said. “I might be able to come up with a spell that would work, too.”

“Well, that’s convenient. Just be thorough. I can put you in touch with an agricultural specialist who can tell you what to look for. You can be vague about where the plants are going so you won’t have to tell him about Rivershire.”

“Nancy,” Pete said, “you’re earning your keep already.”

She smiled with her lips closed, then said, “Jamie, what I’d love to know is how you make the magic doorways. Do you have any idea how that works?”

“Not really, except in the magical sense. I don’t know the physics behind it.” He gazed at the tabletop for a moment. “It’s like I’m lining things up, like turning a dial on a combination lock until the tumblers fall into place, then something clicks in my mind and I know I can push the portal open.”

“But how do you know where you’re making them to?”

“I use my magic sense of space.” He tapped his temple with the fingertips of one hand. “I have an internal map of where I want to go, and I access that when I initiate the spell. It’s like how you can navigate your way through your bedroom in the dark. You know where everything is without having to see it.”

“Tell her about your magic walking stick!” Aiven bobbed his head again. “The one Uncle Charlie made for you.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty cool. I’ve always had a good sense of where to put the doorways when I make them, but if I’m holding that stick, I see glowing lines in my mind that connect to the other worlds. And this part is pretty cool, too. Uncle Charlie gave me the shavings that he carved off of it when he made it, and I figured out that the stick is still connected to them, magically. I can close my eyes while holding it and tell where the individual chips are, even if you carry one way off, even miles away.”

“Tell her about our field trip, Jamie,” Evelyn said.

“We decided to take the kids from the school up to Vessport to see the big sailing ships. It’s a town with a large bay, on the coast north of Rivershire. We bought a whole bunch of cheap lockets and put a little chip from my walking stick inside each of them. Then we gave one to every student. That way, if somebody got separated and lost, my stick would tell me where they were. Pretty awesome, huh?”

“I was a nervous wreck,” Connie said. “He wanted to take the kids to Athens to see the Parthenon, but Evelyn and I had to put our collective foot down about that.”

“There’s no way we can safely take forty or fifty kids there,” Evelyn said. “Too big of a chance of something going wrong.”

“Jamie,” Dr. Tindall said, “what are you majoring in?”

“Biology, for now. I wanted to try physics, but I don’t think I have the math chops to go very far with it. It just seems like knowing more about physics would help my magic. But biology will, too, I think.”

“If you decide to pursue a graduate degree, you should consider environmental science. You’re the best student in my freshman class.”